MO Money Hair Trigger-ISRG Down 11% on FDA Probe Report

Intuitive Surgical (ISRG $509.89) plunged 11% in final minutes upon disclosure from Bloomberg of a safety probe from U.S. regulators. An FDA survey is trying to determine “whether adverse incident reports sent to the agency are ‘a true reflection of problems’.” The trading volume of 783,200 shares is about double the average volume of 429,877 shares most of the increase occurring at the close.As can be seen by the 12 month chart the stocks has been choppy and volatile with three deep plunges to the $480 level with three recoveries to the $550 level but flat over one year. The stock is trading up about 3% after the close to $526. Earlier this month the stock was down on a study questioning the value of robotic surgery for hysterectomies over other minimally invasive surgeries even though it costs one third more. Since 2000 , 1,370 U.S. hospitals have purchased at laest one of the $1.5-$2.2 million robots known as the da Vinci Surgical System made by Intuitive Surgical Inc. of Sunnyvale, CA.

What is unusual about this move is that the Bloomberg report triggered the sell-off only in the last 5 minutes of trading and that the FDA probe was still underway with no conclusions or details of the problems. Look for weakness in other Medtech stocks as well.

The Company is sure to put out a response tomorrow, in the meantime look for other MO stocks that may be overextended and subject to profit taking.

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About Raynovich Rod

Rod Raynovich is an experienced biotech investor and analyst with a focus in vaccines, tools, IVD’s and biopharmaceuticals. Prior to starting Raygent.com, he was a former technology transfer office at UCLA and he has held various executive positions in the biotech and medical device industry, including senior positions at NASDAQ listed biomedical companies. Prior to that Mr.Raynovich held management positions at Abbott, JNJ and Technicon.

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Rod Raynovich is the founder of Raygent Associates, a management consulting firm providing business development and strategic marketing services in the life science and medical device area. He publishes his thoughts and analysis on the biotech industry at www.raygent.com.